HISTORY IS LITTERED with the detritus of good
intentions. “Orphan trains,” which ran from 1853 to
1929, were an effort to find a better life for children
orphaned and abandoned to the streets of New York
City. As with many social programs, it fostered both
good and bad outcomes for its wards. While some
found themselves in decent surroundings, others
were treated as indentured servants or slaves.

Author Christina Baker Kline uses this program
as the foundation of her novel Orphan Train, a riveting tale of a woman, Vivian Daly, who survived her
sometimes harsh past after being transported to the
Midwest, and how Vivian’s recounting
of her history affects a young woman
trying to endure the foster-care system
of today.

“[The orphan trains were] startedby a Methodist minister in New YorkCity, because there were 30,000 childrenliving on the street in 1854, when itbegan,” explains Baker Kline, during aSkype interview from her home in NewJersey. “They were dying in huge num-bers. They were becoming criminals,prostitutes, joining gangs. There was nosocial mobility, and what we think of as DickensianLondon is what New York City was actually like atthat time period.”The idea was to send children to the Midwest,offering them to rural families for assistance onfarms and in homes.

“You take into account that these train riders
were considered workers in a family,” Baker Kline
says. “So, unless they were adopted from really early

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The relationship we had,
and the knowledge that
not all children are as
lucky as I was, make this
month’s book buyer’s
pick, Orphan Train by
Christina Baker Kline, all
the more moving.

Inspired by the real
trains that transported
orphaned or homeless
children from crowded
Eastern cites to points
farther west more than

100 years ago, this is the
;ctional tale of Molly,
who is about to be aged
out of the foster-care
system, and the elderly
Vivian. While helping
Vivian sort through her
possessions, the two
realize they’re not so
different after all.

I cannot stress
enough how warm and
uplifting this book is.

Plus, it inspired me to
learn more about the
orphan trains, a bit of
history I’d known
nothing about until
picking up this book.

(Item #871973, 5/1)

For more book picks,
see page 82.

childhood [as] babies, as some of them were, it wasmore common that they weren’t exactly treated likefamily members.”In Orphan Train, 17-year-old Molly Ayer comesinto 91-year-old Vivian Daly’s life in contemporaryMaine to help clean out her attic as part of a com-munity-service sentence for a minor theft. Thenovel then moves back and forth between the pres-ent day and Vivian’s past. Vivian came to the U.S. inthe early 20th century from her native Ireland, butended up on an orphan train after a tragedy befellher family. The account is riveting and honest. Itfeels like a true story, and, to a degree,it is. Baker Kline immersed herself inresearch before writing the book.

“I went to four orphan train rider
reunions in New York and in Minnesota,” she says. “I went to Ireland, and
“My father is a historian, and he actually warned
me that I could research for the rest of my life and
never actually start writing,” she explains. “So he
said, ‘At a certain point, you just have to jump in,
and then know that you’ll be writing your way into
a moment when you have to do more research.’
That was how it unfolded for me.”

Orphan Train is very cinematic in style and
evokes strong emotions. It did in this reader. And in
its author.

“The hard thing about writing fiction is that fiction is all about conflict, but in one’s own life, at least
in my case, I sort of shy away from conflict, so it’s
hard to move toward it,” Baker Kline admits. “When
you write fiction, you have to move toward it, so
I was like, ‘Oh, no, I have to write a really big
scene right now, and it’s going to be very
stressful.’ But that’s part of the job.” C